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Whether you play multiplayer, casual duels, competitive, or branch out into the alternate constructed formats like emperor or 2 Headed Giant, deck building is in and of itself a skill. Knowing the format is a bonus, having a knowledge of the metagame is important to consider, and learning the most powerful cards is key to winning, but all of these are just tools in the greater challenge. Everything starts with a deck. The best players in the world are able to push the constraints of a deck to its limits, but even they cannot go beyond what a deck has to offer.

Knowing how to correctly build a deck is a subject so mercurial and open to opinion that it could be the subject of an entry-level college course. I’m just going to discuss a few key principles highlighted with some examples to get the gears turning in your head, but from there it’s all up to you. I don’t have time to go into the delicate situation that is building a sealed deck with the cards available, but that may be a subject for future article discussion. For an example of a pick-by-pick construction of a draft deck, I wrote a piece for Cardshark on that very subject a little while ago.

Principle 1: Consistency is your friend.

Not every deck has to have 4 of each possible (non-basic land) card, but the game of Magic is just as obedient to the laws of math as the rest of the universe. The higher your count of a particular card, the higher your chances will be of drawing that particular card. Having one prize Mutilate

s (provided the colors support them) further increases consistency. The more ways your deck has of meeting its goals, whatever they may be, the more smoothly it will run.

Another way to increase consistency is the use of tutors and of “recycle” cards. Tutors will logically help you get the cards that you need when you need them. Each color has tutors in various forms, from the infamous Demonic Tutor

. They serve a variety of functions, from increased use of instants or sorceries to recovering your assets after being targeted for destruction.

The deck I’ve provided below is an example of an extremely consistent, streamlined deck. It wins primarily through unblockable small green creatures that get better with enhancing enchantments. Skarrgan Pit-Skulk should be unblockable when carrying around a Blanchwood Armor

I should put a disclaimer here: while I actually fully intend to build and use this deck in my casual playing group, I have not so far been able to fully collect the cards necessary to finish it out yet. Consider this an experimental deck idea, but one that I feel shows some promise. Dense Canopy

While certainly not every deck has to be this consistent, even Highlander (singleton) decks profit from consistency between cards and their functions. When in doubt, throw in a few Scry cards or a Sensei’s Divining Top to smooth things out just a bit.

Principle 2: Don’t forget about the other decks in the game.

While it can be really easy to get lost in your own ideas for a deck, don’t forget to include answers to potential problems that may arise from opponent’s decks. An aggressive beatdown deck that has a chance of encountering Worship

may seem easy to dispose of when you’re holding some removal, but be careful that you don’t use up your answers on other problems or you might find that winning becomes impossible, literally.

The next deck I have to show you actually does exist in a literal (or, at least, digital) way. It is a deck I have constructed from my online collection that showcases the highly powerful creature Golgari Cave-Troll, a difficult to handle monster that makes every move a difficult decision for the opponent. It also sports removal to handle a variety of potential threats: Last Gasp

I’ve had some good times with this deck, including watching a player with an all-foil Dimir milling deck dump most of my deck into my graveyard, only to speed the deck up and lose at –13 life on turn seven by Cave-Troll beatdown.

So, there you have it- a preliminary look at general construction guidelines that should be utilized regardless of motive or player level. Even if you think that you’re beyond the point where these principles matter, I’d encourage you to rethink them all the same.

Look for my next article in the (hopefully) near future, when it’s likely that I’ll expand upon the subject or possibly take more of a look into deck construction of a sealed variety. Until then, thanks for reading, and for supporting Cardshark!

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